


Mrs. Cantilupe's Necronomicon

by AuthorLoremIpsum



Series: Lodger Stories [5]
Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, The Glass Scientists (Webcomic)
Genre: Cantilupe is a badass and everyone is sh00k, Mild Gore, Mind fuckery, The Necronomicon, just a bit tho, mild violence, sneople (or snake people), team work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 12:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13975458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorLoremIpsum/pseuds/AuthorLoremIpsum
Summary: Mrs. Cantilupe is the delightful Senior extremofaunic zoologist at the Society for Arcane Scientists, what she isn't is free of secrets. Her study has lead her down dark paths, and left her more than prepared to deal with a threat when it leaves one of the lodgers scratched and maimed.





	Mrs. Cantilupe's Necronomicon

“Mrs. C?” Sinnett called, pushing open the door to her lab. “Uh, Missus Cantilupe? A-Are you in here? Doctor Jekyll is looking for you!”

There was no answer from within the darkened laboratory.

He swallowed hard, and made a move to step within the doorway, but stopped short. 

He’d never liked going into this lab, not just because of the cages full of creatures that had no right to exist naturally, but because there was something just wrong about the room. The atmosphere inside, while comfortable when lit with gas lamps, became positively oppressive and horrifically alluring when the lights went dark. Sinnett, and others, would swear they’d seen dark shapes flitting in corners, corners of their eyes, corners of their minds, the corners of the room that didn’t exist when you looked at them head on. Curious shapes marked into certain cages and boxes seemed to twist and morph when you stared at them, burning themself into one’s eyes like a bright light and yet somehow impossible to recreate from memory.

Something whispered in that room, a multitude of voices promising something, something everyone wanted.

Sinnett’s first step into the lab was his own, the second was not. The whispers had leaked into his mind when he hesitated, he’d dared to listen, allowing them to worm their way into his soul where they latched on and began growing roots, tugging him inside. Promises, thoughts of fires, pulling on the desires for which he felt ashamed, but was powerless to stop as he shambled inside, a puppet to these whispers.

Around a corner, resting on a dais just before the massive skull of an ancient leviathan, sat a book.

Bound in black, the voices calling to the pyrologist begged him to approach, but he had enough sense to root him to the spot, torn between giving in and obeying, and his fear to run from these voices and never return. This book, it was more than paper and pages, there was a power within the ink it bore, within the twisting runes and translated english, within the images of creatures so nightmarish and horrifying that few could look upon them without feeling a deep sense of unease.

This book-

A hand closed the cover, an individual stepped between its influence and Sinnett, snapping a few times. He blinked deliriously as the gas lamps in the room flared to life, pushing back the darkness and the whispers. Suddenly realization crashed in and he backed up, “Mrs. Cantilupe! I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have intruded, I-I don’t know what came over me I-”

The old woman raised a hand to silence him, her expression not one of anger, but of sorrow. “No, Mr. Sinnett, it is my fault that happened to you. I was careless and left the book unattended as I went to get some tea. I should have known it would attempt to reach out.”

“R-Reach out?” he stammered, moving to rub his arm just above where skin attached to metal. It itched there suddenly…

Mrs. Cantilupe nodded and turned to look at the horrible black book, Sinnett could see that its cover was clean of words and markings, but the spine bore a horrible name. The  _ Necronomicon _ , and he frowned.

“I-I thought that book was all hogwash,” he stammered, looking to the zoologist with confusion. “Written by a madman, wasn’t it?”

“Indeed, and his madness still infects the pages, even translated,” she said, picking up a purple cloth embroidered with silver and draping it over the dais so as to hide the tome, as if it were watching. “For it was not madness that drove Abdul Alhazred to write it, he was instructed and puppeted to compile it by something greater.” She looked up to the massive skull that sat before them, and Sinnett felt a deep chill race down his spine. 

“Are you, are you saying God compelled this man to make a forever cursed book?” he asked, fighting the urge to shudder again.

“Not our God, not any human deity,” Cantilupe said, turning to look at him, her normally spirited and warm eyes icy. “Not even anything of this earth, maybe even of this dimension! The fact that these skeletons exist on our plane is foreboding as it is, and I loathe to discover what would happen if we were to successfully resurrect one.”

“Resurrection?” Sinnett cried, jaw falling open and eyes going wide. “You mean to tell me you can bring these things to LIFE?”

“Depends on what you define as life,” she countered with a shrug, moving to a nearby desk. “Truthfully, they never truly died, a consciousness still permeates within these bones, why do you think they glow? Who do you think was urging you to use the book?” Sinnett’s face went a shade paler. “Had I not stopped you, you would have awoke it by chanting a few words in r’lyehian and willingly giving up your life force without an ounce of actual will involved!”

She glanced over and sighed when she saw the pyrologist staggering away from the book and into a creaking arm chair, his good hand clutching at his heart and his face the color of ash. “Oh dear!” She moved to his side, draping the shawl she wore over his shoulders as some means of comfort. “Come along lad, let’s get you into the sunlight and away from these horrible things.”

He nodded shakily and allowed her to lift him from the chair. His mind was reeling from the fact he’d essentially been possessed by a dead skeleton that bore the mind of some great deity and had been minutes from summoning it onto this plane, thus killing himself and probably dooming the Society. Once again, the Grim Reaper had brushed him with his scythe, but this time the weapon had been carried by something far more terrifying.

Stepping out of the lab had a sort of exorcismal effect, as if a dark cloth was pulled from his mind, allowing him to finally take a full breath as Mrs. Cantilupe lead him out to the foyer where sun shone in through the windows overhead. A false protection, if what she said had been true, but infinitely comforting.

Their conversation, which had been little more than reassurances, now changed and bloomed into a gentle debate about if Hyde was a servant of some extremofaunic entity, and things were well.

For all of five minutes.

Helsby came bursting up from a bottom floor room, calling for help, no  _ begging  _ for it. “Mosley’s hurt! Badly! Please someone help!”

“On our way!” Cantilupe called, sharing a look with Sinnett before they took off running.

“I’ll get Ito to prepare a salve!” Tweedy called from across the lobby.

“I’ll fetch Doctor Jekyll!” Luckett answered, running for the doors of the Society.

Down down down into the cellar the Lodgers ran, each bringing something they thought could help, bandages, ice, materials to make a splint, thread and needle, all worried. Helsby lead the way, his expression one of anxiety and terror. To his surprise, Cantilupe overtook him, mumbling something about “knowing they were down there damnit!”

The commotion burst into Mosley’s basement laboratory and there was a gasp of terror. He lay at the mouth to his tunnels, the hatch shut behind him, barred with a fallen bookshelf, bleeding from deep gashes in his arms, leg and back. His mask-scarf and goggles had been ripped away and more cuts crossed his face. Helsby had clearly dragged him away from the door and laid him on his back, but it was also clear that Mosley was in desperate need of medical attention.

Cantilupe didn’t seem concerned with that though, and she moved to inspect the bookshelf as the others gathered around their fallen friend. Well, all of them except Sinnett and Lavender, who ran to her mentor’s side and knelt. They spoke in hushed tones, gesturing down with worried looks. He crept over and knelt, “There’s somethin’ down there, isn’t there?”

“Many somethings,” Cantilupe said with a scowl, “If Mosley’s wounds are anything to go by.”

“Do you think they’d make it this far? I’d thought they were near sealed in that cavern with the obsidian door,” Lavender said.

“I was under the same impression, but I think our dear hollow-earth-submariner might’ve found the few we could not find when we were researching.”

“How do you mean?”

“Recall how the manuscripts remarked that a small sect of those creatures broke off to follow Nyarlathotep as opposed to Cthulu, perhaps our friend found the remaining members of that sect,” Cantilupe said gravely. Lavender nodded, hand on her chin deep in thought, both of them ignoring that Sinnett was staring at them as if they’d both sprouted ears and a tail. Accordingly, they paused their conversation to look to him, and Lavender offered an awkward smile.

“To be fair, we don’t actually know what they  _ are _ ,” she said, gesturing to the jammed tunnel entrance.

“We will ask Mosley once, if he wakes, and if he’s still sane,” Cantilupe added with a grim air of confidence. “We don’t know what they can do, only that they are near lethal, and whether or not this means they can inflict madness like a poison has yet to be seen.”

“You mean, Mosley could…”

“He could be gone, but keep your chin up!” Cantilupe lifted his chin literally and smiled, “We must stay optimistic, and figure out a way to stop these things. It’s time for Lavender and I to show you all what our fieldwork is like.”

The women stood and moved to where Mosley had been lifted onto his bed, surrounded by muttering and worried friends. Cantilupe pushed through and knelt beside him, reaching out to gently shake him, “Mosley, Ethan, you must wake up, we need your help.”

In text, there is no easy way to show that these same words, ordinary in speech and tone, carried a sort of power to them. They were not a suggestion, but an order told gently, carrying some sort of strangeness that made it nigh impossible to ignore, even to the bleeding and injured mole that lay before her. His eyes, so often hid by goggles, strained, and slowly peeled open, looking around in dazed and exhausted confusion.

“Mosley? Can you hear me?” she asked, tilting her head. He nodded weakly, but did not speak. “Good, you must wake up, we need you to tell us what was down there, what you found.”

Again, he nodded, and his lips twitched as he tried to form words, eyes flicking about. Well, eye, the other was covered with gauze to staunch the blood flow of a cut that dragged down his face. Helsby sat on the bed, “Mrs. C is he going to be alright?”

“We will see Ranjit, but your panic is not helping,” she said, cheerful demeanor replaced with something scathing and sharp.

“H-Helsby?” Mosley asked, frowning. “I can hard, hardly see, it’s so bright in here.”

“Nevermind the light, what did you see down there man?” Helsby asked, taking Mosley’s torn hand in his. Cantilupe looked mildly irritated her investigation was being hijacked, but if it got an answer out of the man then so be it.

Mosley took a shaking breath and squinted, smiling a bit, “You’re all, looking at me, aren’t you? Because those things stole my mask. W-well, what do you think?”

“You’re quite handsome!” Ms. Flowers offered, trying to be polite. 

“I concur,” Mr. Doddle said.

“Mosley, we’ll get you a mask if you want, but you must tell us what is down there!” Helsby insisted, squeezing his hand.

He nodded slowly and closed his eyes, “I, I had been making a new tunnel, trying to find an underwater river that I’d hear through a wall. A-and, I found it, I did I found it, but, there was something in it, there was something,  _ down  _ there.”

“What? What was down there?”

“It, they were in the water, the river was far deeper and wider than I expected. I fell, and dragged myself back into my tunnel, coughing. I took off my scarf to, to breathe and, and then they came.” His eyes shot open and darted around, locking onto Cantilupe’s face. “They, they were humanoid, but impossibly reptilian. They were like, snakes, lizards, but men and, and they, and they came after me. I abandoned my scarf and ran, when I stumbled at the base of my ladder they were upon me. I- I barely got away, I only did because Helsby opened the hatch when he heard my screaming. The light scared them off, they won’t be gone for long I-I-I-” 

    He broke down coughing, covering his mouth.

    “Easy, easy Mosley,” Cantilupe reassured him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “What you saw was an offshoot of human evolution, similar species exist elsewhere in the world and worship dark entities to whom we are nothing but ants or mice. Your survival was a miracle, and we are all the more glad that you are here with us. But I fear we will have to return to that dark place, to find these creatures before they use your tunnels to escape and begin a new reign of terror. Do you understand?” 

    Mosley nodded weakly, turning to look to her, squinting through the bright light. “I will give you a map, but I will not go down there till I have it on your word that those creatures are either dead or sealed.”

    “They will be dead, for their kin were sealed under Shadwell.” She squeeze his shoulder, “We best take you upstairs, that shelf isn’t the strongest protection, you know.”

    “I-I know.” 

    “Helsby?”

    The bathynaut nodded and, with a bit of help from Tweedy, they carried Mosley up to one of the spare rooms and laid him there. Helsby promised to stay by his side as the others dispersed on Cantilupe’s order to “arm yourselves, clearly they’re feisty.”

    When Doctor Jekyll arrived, he froze upon seeing Tweedy and Sinnett carrying a box of things he prayed to God were flares. Luckett pulled him along up to Mosley’s room where he nearly snapped upon seeing Mosley in such a poor state, even as Ito arrived with the Fleshweaver potion. (The severity of the wounds startled Hyde into silence, which was a relief since he’d been positively nattering all day) Helsby explained what had happened and the revelation that the Society was built atop an ancient river with reptilian people living within. 

    What Henry told them was that he would go to the police for assistance, what he did was sneak off and trade places with Hyde after a painful few minutes. Hyde wanted in on the expedition, and though his sudden arrival surprised many of the Lodgers, they were glad to have him along.

    Ito, Flowers, and Helsby would stay behind and hold the fort, Maijabi confessed his knee was too weak to climb, and Doddle admitted to having a weak stomach for gore. Even still, there were more than enough Lodgers with Hyde along to hold their own.

    To everyone’s surprise, they found Lavender and Cantilupe waiting for them in Mosley’s cellar lab. Lavender sat atop a chest, lacing up heavy boots beneath her skirt, and Cantilupe had traded her own dress for trousers, boots, a vest and a white cotton shirt rolled up to the sleeves. A hefty looking rifle was slung over her back and she held that haunted black tome that had ensnared Sinnett before.

    The pyrologist fought a shiver upon seeing it.

    “So, what’s the plan?” Hyde asked, sounding far too excited to tramp about in tunnels chasing deadly reptile men. “We  _ can  _ kill these things right? I know your extremofauna are notoriously lethal and hard to kill but-”

    “These things are mortal, but deadly,” she said with a solemn nod. “They have the upper hand down there, regardless of our weapons.”

    Everyone looked to what they had managed to put together, knives pilfered from the labs, a trident, a shovel, two electrified rods, a pickaxe, a cursed dagger, and a flower. (No one but Archer had the heart to tell Bird it wouldn’t help much, but he insisted it was for healing) 

    All in all, they seemed rather pitifully prepared, even with Luckett and Sinnett’s supply of explosives and flares, many of which would likely bring the earth down on top of them. That is, until Lavender opened the chest to reveal a set of old pistols, which Cantilupe demonstrated how to load before flicking it closed and pocketing it. This added four pistols to their arsenal, along with Cantilupe’s rifle. 

    Pennebrygg brought rope, just in case.

    With a heave, the bookshelf blocking the entrance to the tunnels rose back to its standing position and the door was flung open. Silence, cold air, and the musty smell of earth drafted up from the ladder shaft lined with small electric lights. 

    The hunting party descended one by one on the ladder, illuminating the tunnel below with gas lamps as they crowded in. Lavender pulled out a map she’d sketched under Mosley’s instruction and began to lead the way deeper. Cantilupe stayed just in front of her junior, rifle at the ready at the slightest sign of a scuffle. 

    Eventually, after climbing down a ladder and brightening their lanterns, they came upon a cavern with walls covered with that mysterious and disturbing language that Cantilupe’s book bore. The Lodgers spread out, examining the cave with various murmerings of awe and fascination. Someone remarked: “I ought to come down here more often…”

    Cantilupe walked to one wall and stared at a hauntingly familiar symbol. She reached up and touched it, looking down with a sigh.

    There was skittering sound and the whole room went dead silent.

    There was an opening to one side, and beyond rushing water could be heard just beyond the opening, as well as the hissing of something else.

    Weapons were drawn, everyone backed away from the opening, lamplight trained on the gap. Mosley’s gear was still scattered about, his scarf was lying on the ground among his tools and horrifying footprints dragged back into the opening. Cantilupe stiffened, quietly reaching down to pick up the forgotten scarf and goggles, “All of you who don’t have firearms, I’d recommend you head into the passage. Lavender, give them the map, and all of you be prepared to run.”

    “Run? Can’t you handle them?” asked Bird, taking the map. Cantilupe silently loaded her rifle before shooting him a look. “I won’t know until they’re dead, will I?”

    Her cold and sharp attitude, so surprising to these who knew her, shooed those of weaker constitution back into the hallway. 

    “Mrs. C? Should I…” Lavender hesitated to say it, knowing the danger of what they had to do.

    “Bring them out,” her senior ordered, opening her bag to pass the cursed black tome to Lavender. The younger woman visible shook upon receiving it, the air seemed to chill and the lamps dimmed. Those who remained, Tweedy, Archer, Pennebrygg and Hyde backed away instinctively, repulsed by this cursed book that Lavender held as she knelt. She opened it and the oppressive atmosphere seemed to grow thicker, Cantilupe raised her rifle to the opening and stepped closer.

    When Lavender began to speak, reading from a passage in the horrid  _ Necronomicon _ , everyone shuddered in fear. The words rang in the mind, echoing within as they echoed in the cave around them, stuck like a fragment of a song in a deep part of the mind. Scuttling and shifting sounds that had come from beyond the opening grew louder, accompanied by hissing and growling that they hadn’t heard before, enraged by the whispering voice of Lavender.

    She almost stopped when something moved past the opening, but Cantilupe gently, and forcefully, ordered her to continue. The first shot fired landed dead middle in the forehead of the beast that dragged itself out, dropping it in the opening and leaving it laying there. Cantilupe heard her fellow Lodgers gasp in horror at the sight, something all too similar to a man, yet so far separated along the evolutionary chain that it was nigh impossible to call it a man.

    Thick scales covered the entire body, the back legs bent back like a dog’s and were built with strong muscle, the hands were clawed with massive talons, the head jutted out with a long snout and massive teeth that poked out from the gums, wide eyes meant for darkness stared up from the corpse as it went limp. 

    Cantilupe reloaded her rifle, told Lavender to continue, and waited. 

    The beasts came en masse now, enraged by the death of their fellow, but they were forced through an opening which only one massive beast-man could crawl at a time. This allowed more than enough time for the beast to be struck dead from any of the five guns present. And they just, kept, coming. Lavender stopped reading in the gunfire to cover her ears, for they rang like church-bells and her head was aching and throbbing.

    Eventually, the gunfire stopped, Cantilupe raised a fist like a general and it went silent. Carefully, she stepped forward, watching the bodies with the steely gaze of a hunter for any sign of movement. One of them reached a shaking claw towards her, it’d been struck in the gut and snout, but not the brain.

    Without mercy, she raised her rifle and fired one final shot that rang through the tunnel like a gong. 

    Cantilupe turned and slung the bag over her shoulder, “Get Luckett, have him detonate that river, block it off. This may only be a hunting party, we can’t risk more of them getting free.”

    She was met with stunned gazes, until she shouted: “NOW!”

They all scrambled for the exit, gladly retreating from the dark into the tunnel filled with light and friends. Voices echoed in to where Cantilupe stood, focused on the bloodied monstrosities of nature at her feet. 

Footsteps crept up behind her and she turned to look, seeing a confused Hyde standing nearby, brow furrowed. “Mrs. C, I had no idea you were such a uh, daring-do.”

“I’m not,” she answered stiffly, loading her gun and peering into the opening. It was dead silent beyond but for the running of water, but she dare not drop her guard.

Not yet.

“But you are! Master huntress, crossed the world carrying a cursed book that summons monsters,” Hyde rambled, gesturing with his hands to where Lavender had sat. The place on the earth seemed stained with something dark, but to stare at it head on, one saw nothing. “Come on, you gotta admit-”

“NO!” Hyde flinched and backed up, surprised by the old woman’s ferocity as she rounded on him, storming up to face him and standing at her full height, shoulders squared. “Hyde. I am not an adventurer, I’m not a general, and I am not a subject for your stories and gossip. My husband died to this monstrous life, and I am a zoologist to protect those who wish to follow the same path. I fight, because I must.”

She stormed off towards the exit of the cave and out into the passageway, passing Luckett and Sinnett who were carrying their box of definitely-not-flares inside. Hyde stared after, irritated he’d been rejected in so rude a fashion for something as simple as a story, until a sound from the pile of bodies beside made him jump and take off at a sprint to leave. 

He reached the passageway just in time to see Cantilupe taking her cursed book from Lavender before leading the hunting party back towards the surface.

~

The detonation of the cave and resulting cave in of the underground river did little to affect Mosley’s tunnelling, but now he began work on some sort of device to defend himself, a large handheld drill that could easily take off the head of men.

Cantilupe returned to her bubbling and laughing state by nightfall, but asked that no one speak of what had transpired earlier, better the public not know that the Society was built on top of the home of monsters.

In fact, she asked they never speak of it, or the cursed book used to bring them out, ever again.

And they didn’t.


End file.
